MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell unloaded on Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley for attempting to use what he called "Trumpian insult comedy" by questioning Joe Biden's ability to stand for 90 minutes in a debate.
Hawley — a long shot to become Trump's running mate this year — did his best to imitate former President Donald Trump's style of hurling insults, recirculating a debunked claim from right-wing media outlets that President Joe Biden did not want to stand for the CNN-hosted debate.
"He can’t stand for 90 minutes - but he’s 100% able to be President? Have fun explaining that," Hawley wrote in a post on X, resharing an article from Washington Reporter.
CNN quickly denied the reporting, calling the report "not accurate" and noting that both Biden and Trump agreed to the network's proposed format when they accepted the debate invitation.
In his blistering remarks Tuesday night, O'Donnell slammed Hawley's snide remark, saying, "I can explain it in three words: Franklin Delano Roosevelt."
Roosevelt served four consecutive terms, making him the nation's longest-serving president.
"And in every day of his 13 years as president, Franklin Roosevelt was in a wheelchair," O'Donnell said. "The same wheelchair he was in in his two terms as governor of New York."
FDR lost the ability to walk when he was struck by polio at 39.
"So, no, standing for 90 minutes is not a presidential job requirement," O'Donnell said, noting that among the former president's greatest accomplishments — completed from his wheelchair — was winning World War II.
"Adolf Hitler was a younger, healthier man than Franklin Roosevelt, but from his wheelchair President Franklin Delano Roosevelt forced Adolf Hitler in Berlin to commit suicide in his bunker as the allies, commanded by Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, were closing in on the German capital city."
And it's here where O'Donnell arguably hit Hawley the hardest.
"Hitler could stand for 90 minutes. He did it all the time," O'Donnell said. "90 minutes was a short speech for Adolf Hitler. Josh Hawley would have loved Adolf Hitler if standing for 90 minutes and ranting incoherently is something Josh Hawley truly admires as presidential."
Hawley, he said, "knows it doesn't matter how long a president can stand."
The MSNBC host also pointed to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who uses a wheelchair following a life-threatening accident in 1984, and who "Republicans believe is the greatest Texas governor in history."
"But wise-guy Josh Hawley wants to do his punk joke about standing for 90 minutes so that he can impress the world's worst insult comedian, Donald Trump," O'Donnell said. "Sen. Hawley is one of the unindicted participants in Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Sen. Hawley was the first member of the Senate to agree to join Republican House members in their plan to challenge the electoral votes won by Joe Biden."
A discussion on CNN Tuesday seemingly became difficult for conservative Scott Jennings when his Democratic opponent came prepared with facts and nuance in their debate.
Jennings ranted that President Joe Biden should have done several things on his first day in office, which Democrat Maria Cardona corrected, saying there were things done on that first day.
Republicans notably stopped their own landmark immigration law, which had a deal between both sides for the first time in decades. Trump told them he wanted to attack Biden on immigration during the 2024 campaign, so GOP lawmakers couldn't pass the bill and give the Democrats a "win."
Cardona complained that Trump had four years in office, including a point during which Republicans held the House and Senate. They failed to pass any reform as well.
She then hammered Jennings on purporting to be a pro-family conservative while also trying to tear families apart.
It's "kind of rich" because "what this actually does, Scott and Jim, this keeps American families together when Republicans scream that kids need a father and a mother will guess what, then join us?" said Cardona. "Because this is exactly what this executive action is doing."
Jennings joked, "I'm actually just going to give in and say that I think Maria should go over to the White House today and encourage Joe Biden to run on as much amnesty as possible."
Cardona jumped on the comment, saying that it delivered nothing of the sort and that using words like that is "lazy." She cited polling data that dives into the nuances of the issue beyond unrealistic ideas like "mass deportation." When questioned about individual pieces such as border security and a pathway to citizenship for those brought to the U.S. as children currently in the DACA plan.
Jennings sarcastically cackled at Cardona, demanding to know if Americans think canceling Trump's executive actions is wise. Executive orders are an inside baseball term that few Americans remember, much less understand.
"This is good policy, and it's good politics," Cardona said, encouraging Jennings to put solutions before politics and pass meaningful legislation.
Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) clashed over an attempt to consider bringing contempt proceedings for Attorney General Merrick Garland for blocking the release of audio tapes related to an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden based on his interview with special counsel Robert Hur. The dust-up drew in not only Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) as a protector, but also Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) as the silent enforcer — apparently pining to settle the matter with fists.
“When AOC jumped in so quickly, what people didn't see off camera was that Ayanna Pressley was ready to jump in and stood up and... it was gonna get into a fight,” Crockett told The Independent of the May 17 spat caught on camera.
Greene fired the first salvo.
"I would like to know if any of the Democrats on this committee are employing Judge [Juan] Merchan’s daughter," the Georgia pol quipped.
She said: "What does that have to do with Garland?"
"I don’t think you know what we’re here for," Greene said. "I think your fake eyelashes are messing up your reading."
The insult prompted Ocasio-Cortez to formally demand the jab be stricken from the record.
"I do have a point of order, and I would like to move to take down Ms. Greene’s words. That is absolutely unacceptable. How dare you attack the physical appearance of another person... move her words down," she said.
"Are your feelings hurt?" Greene taunted.
"Oh girl, baby girl!" Ocasio-Cortez shot back. "Don’t even play!"
And it was then that Crockett floated a hypothetical to Oversight Chairman James Comer: “I'm just curious to better understand your ruling, if someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleach blonde, bad-built butch body — that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?”
A confused Comer was at a loss trying to make sense of the question.
"A what now," he asked.
Greene later fired back at Crockett saying: “Yes my body is built and strong NOT with nips, tucks, plastic, or silicone, but through a healthy lifestyle.”
It appears there were hearty amounts of alcohol being consumed by Congress members that night.
Crockett capitalized on the viral moment, seizing the trademark for the phrase, “BLEACH BLONDE BAD BUILT BUTCH BODY,” first reported by USA Today.
Crockett doesn't regret the back-and-forth as she believes it shows the kind of prejudice she and other lawmakers face.
“The bigger story that kind of emerged from this was what women of color face at work,” she explained. “When you're by yourself, people take liberties, but when they realize that you're not by yourself, it definitely puts them in a different light and puts them in a different stance.”
Donald Trump struggled through another rally speech marred by mumbling and slurring in Milwaukee, Wisconsin rally on Tuesday — and his critics were delighted.
" Joe Biden is forming granting mass--thinkit," Trump meandered in a section of the speech, with an excerpt of the video quickly spreading online.
The mumbling led to his foes, like the Republican Never Trumpers at Lincoln Project, to anticipate "the debate should be fun."
At another moment, Trump mispronounced citizenship by calling it "citizensip."
Trump went on to claim that Joe Biden would be doing millions of dollars worth of cocaine during the debates. He then randomly pivoted to talking about a laptop that "somebody" left behind, apparently confusing Hunter Biden with Joe Biden.
He then asserted that inflation was between "40 and 50 percent" — rather the 3.3 percent that was recorded over the last 12 months. He might be confusing it with the fact that inflation hit a 40-year high, but that was two years ago in June 2022 when Americans were starting to come out of the pandemic.
As Trump continued, he struggled to remember ABC News host George Stephanopoulos' name, making a couple of efforts to pronounce it: ""George Stopalopodis ... George Stopodiaiiee."
The ex-president then bragged that he did well in Wisconsin in 2016 and even did "better" in 2020. Trump actually lost Wisconsin in 2020.
Trump then mocked former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy by telling the crowd: "There's never been a politician, Vivek -- you're just peanuts, by comparison, Vivek!"
In a startling moment, Trump was talking about how he could have enjoyed a better life if he didn't run for office and, in the middle of a sentence, he noticed a lake and began talking about sharks.
Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling wrote in the New Republic that Trump can't stop fumbling during his rambling speeches and questioned whether it was an indication of a cognitive decline.
President Joe Biden attempted a political high-wire act Tuesday by announcing a citizenship pathway for half a million immigrants married to U.S. nationals, in a counterweight to his recent crackdown on illegal border crossers.
The Biden administration has been struggling to address immigration, a hugely divisive issue for many Americans ahead of November’s presidential election.
“We can both secure the border and provide legal pathways to citizenship, but we have to acknowledge the patience of goodwill the American people is being tested by their fears at the border,” Biden said at the White House.
The Democrat is seeking to be tougher on illegal migrants while contrasting himself with Donald Trump, whose attempt to win back the White House is centered on portraying the country as under assault by what he calls a migrant “invasion.”
Biden’s action to protect a whole class of immigrants was immediately condemned by Trump and other Republicans. However, it was hailed by immigration reform activists who had previously been dismayed by Biden’s new border restrictions.
In his speech on the reforms, Biden said Trump was trying “to play on” Americans’ fears.”
The new rules will streamline the process for those who already qualify for permanent residence, by removing a requirement they leave the country as part of the application process.
The rules apply to those present in the country for at least 10 years and married to a U.S. citizen before June 17, 2024 — which the administration estimates to include around 500,000 people. In addition, some 50,000 stepchildren of U.S. citizens are eligible.
Those approved will be granted work authorization and the right to stay in the United States for up to three years while they apply for the coveted green card. That would then allow them to apply later for full citizenship.
A senior administration official told reporters ahead of the announcement that the White House accepts much more is needed to fix the contentious and inefficient US immigration system.
However, “only Congress can deliver… comprehensive reform of our immigration and asylum laws.”
Trump lashes out
Trump attacked Biden’s policy in characteristic fashion, with lurid language and violent imagery.
“As innocent Americans are being beaten, raped, and murdered by Biden illegals, Crooked Joe Biden isn’t taking action to stop this invasion or remove violent predators from our country,” he said. “Instead, Biden is granting mass amnesty.”
Far-right House member Marjorie Taylor Greene said Biden “wrote a vote-buying free citizenship executive order.”
But groups campaigning for undocumented spouses of US citizens to get work permits celebrated.
“President Biden’s action to extend work permits for long-term immigrant spouses is morally right, economically sound and politically smart,” said Rebecca Shi, executive director of the American Business Immigration Coalition.
“The overwhelming majority of Americans support these humane and common-sense steps, and it will directly improve the lives of more than 10 million American citizens who have an undocumented family member,” she said. “Today, those families, and the advocates fighting on their behalf, can breathe a huge sigh of relief.”
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador welcomed the news as a “step forward.”
Attempt to stem flow
The new protections for spouses of US citizens follow Biden’s decision to impose dramatic new restrictions at the Mexico border.
A previous, bipartisan immigration package pushed by Biden in Congress would have introduced the strictest policies in decades, but it fell apart when Republicans walked away from the deal — under pressure from Trump, whose campaign depends on portraying Biden as failing on the issue.
Biden then signed an executive order shutting down the border to asylum seekers after certain daily limits are hit — a move that immediately drew criticism from the left and a legal challenge from rights groups.
The administration has defended its asylum order and characterized the congressional push as “the toughest and fairest set of reforms in decades.”
Trump meanwhile has referred to immigrants as “poisoning the blood of the country” and promised mass deportations of those in the country illegally.
The Biden administration on Tuesday also simplified the process for migrants who came to the United States illegally as children — known as Dreamers — to get work visas if they’ve graduated college and have a “high-skilled job offer.”
Donald Trump has switched up his lodging plans for the Republican National Convention — which kicks off July 15 — after calling Milwaukee "horrible."
When the GOP convention takes place, Trump said he will rest his "beautiful blue eyes" in Milwaukee, not Chicago.
The 45th president batted down reports that he planned to crash at his Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago.
But when reporters questioned the campaign, on Tuesday afternoon Trump's camp reversed course and confirmed he would stay in town in the crucial battleground state.
"The president is planning to stay in Milwaukee for the Convention," Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt told ABC7.
The reason behind staying 90 miles away from Milwaukee was based on Trump's personal preference to stay in his own hotel. Security and logistics concerns played a factor, according to The New York Times, citing anonymous sources.
Trump has backtracked after he was caught disparaging the RNC host city of Milwaukee as a "horrible city."
The city controversy stemmed from a meeting with high-powered CEOs that reportedly went sideways because Trump couldn't stay on topic. He has since tried to clean up the mess.
Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to Donald Trump, revealed a plan to have the former president re-take the White House with the help of judges who are prepared to act despite the election results.
Liberal journalist Lauren Windsor caught Stone revealing the plan on an undercover video.
"At least this time when they do it, you have a lawyer and a judge — his home phone number standing by — so you can stop it," Stone explained in the video. "We made no preparations last time, none … There are technical, legal steps that we have to take to try and have a more honest election. We're not there yet, but there's things that can be done."
Windsor provided Rolling Stone with recordings of Stone speaking candidly at Mar-a-Lago on March 19 at a Catholic Prayer for Trump event.
Stone suggested to Windsor's colleague, Ally Sammarco, that U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon would soon dismiss the charges against Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents.
"We are beating them," Stone said. "I think the judge is on the verge of dismissing the charges against him in Florida. They're delayed in New York City, and they're now delayed in Washington."
After Stone made the remarks, Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in a Manhattan hush money trial.
Cannon, however, has a history of making rulings that benefit Trump. This week, she will kick off a series of hearings on the possibility of dismissing the classified documents case after Trump attorneys claimed special counsel Jack Smith was improperly appointed. Other courts have rejected similar claims.
Stone told Windsor that the election "can be stolen again."
"We're working on this," he insisted, worrying that "overconfidence" could cause Trump voters to stay home.
Stone said "lawyers, judges, [and] technology" would be the key to putting Trump in the White House even if President Joe Biden is reelected.
In a statement to Rolling Stone, the Trump adviser doubled down on his remarks.
"All of the election integrity provisions that I suggested are perfectly legal and should be part of any ballot Security effort," he said.
"The 21% U.S. corporate tax rate is the biggest single variable in the sprawling 2025 tax debate, and the two parties are trying to turn that dial in opposite directions with major consequences for companies’ profits and federal revenue," the quotation reads.
"The rate could climb as high as 28% if Democrats sweep November’s elections and move as low as 15% if Republicans gain full power."
Other outlets have noted the current rate of 21 percent, and that Biden has suggested, is well below that of the economic boom in the 1950s.
"It’s worth noting that even if Biden were to hit that rate, it would still be far below the historic peaks during the post-World War II economic boom, when it hit over 50%" writes MSNBC columnist Hayes Brown.
"Some Republicans are, meanwhile, mulling over whether to cut rates all the way down to 15%, according to The Wall Street Journal, dropping them to a level not seen since the Great Depression."
A former supporter of Donald Trump left the fold because he grew tired of being a "dog" the far-right media had trained to bark at the behest of a "sociopath" like the former president, the swing state voter wrote in a new editorial Tuesday.
Tom Keltner, of Ohio, details for the Cincinnati Enquirer his shift from election-denier to never-Trumper, spurred by a desire to escape conservative media's hold andenlightened by a PBS documentary about the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021.
"After watching it, I felt embarrassed that I have been influenced to ignore outside information from 'my bubble' and felt like a dog that was 'trained to bark' at a narrow set of specific things as 'trained' by the sources I was limiting myself to," Keltner writes.
"I am now seeking out as much information as I can get from outside of my bubble and trying to keep a keen eye on the truths that exist there and the lies that exist within my bubble. It's a challenge that requires a lot of careful work."
Keltner tells readers he twice voted for Trump and firmly believed the narratives presented to him by Fox News, Newsmax and conservative talk radio.
Those beliefs included that the 2020 election was stolen, the Jan. 6 riots were peaceful, Democrats were to blame for leaving the Capitol unguarded and PBS was not to be trusted.
As for Trump, Keltner thought he "just had a weird personality, was a fresh change from the politics as is, and had the right policies for America."
This changed on Jan. 30 of this year, when Frontline released its "Democracy on Trial" documentary about Trump's criminal charges that stemmed from the historic attack three years earlier, Keltner explains.
Keltner found himself faced with facts he could not refute and actions he could not condone.
"It opened my eyes to critical true information about Jan. 6, Trump, Rudy Giuliani, the myth of the stolen election, Trump's true intent to have then-Vice President Mike Pence overturn the election and his refusal to act to stop the riot as encouraged by his advisors, White House staff and family members, among many other things," he explained.
This realization led Keltner to consider seriously a surprising source: a 19th century Russian neurologist and Nobel Prize winner named Ivan Pavlov.
"Pavlov discovered that dogs salivated as food approached, but then eventually salivated just at the sight of the white uniforms of the nurses who repeatedly delivered the food," he writes. "Similarly, I believe that 'information' represents the 'food' for many Americans, but people start 'salivating' immediately when they see the deliverers or 'the sources' (Fox News, CNN, et. al.) come on and just blindly believe what they offer."
Keltner feels honor-bound to vote but says he cannot in good conscience cast ballots for a "sociopath" like Trump or President Joe Biden, whom he describes as "corrupt" and "incompetent."
"We need to make our decisions based on common facts, or as close as possible, not the contrived, slanted information that is being fed to us in our bubbles," he concludes.
"Without people showing a willingness to step outside of their bubble, I see no end to the division."
Former Trump Senior White House Advisor Stephen Miller expressed outrage as news began to break Monday that President Joe Biden will announce protections for about 500,000 undocumented immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens, along with making it easier for Dreamers to get work visas.
"The president’s executive action will shield undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens from deportation, allow them to obtain work authorization, as well as ease their path to permanent resident status, the three sources told PBS News," PBS NewsHour's Laura Barrón-López reported. "The announcement will be made at a White House event marking the 12th anniversary of an Obama-era action that protected undocumented youth brought to the U.S. as children from deportation."
Calling it "New Actions to Keep Families Together," the Biden White House issued a a fact sheet Tuesday, explaining that "President Biden is announcing that the Department of Homeland Security will take action to ensure that U.S. citizens with noncitizen spouses and children can keep their families together. This new process will help certain noncitizen spouses and children apply for lawful permanent residence – status that they are already eligible for – without leaving the country. These actions will promote family unity and strengthen our economy, providing a significant benefit to the country and helping U.S. citizens and their noncitizen family members stay together."
"In order to be eligible, noncitizens must – as of June 17, 2024 – have resided in the United States for 10 or more years and be legally married to a U.S. citizen, while satisfying all applicable legal requirements. On average, those who are eligible for this process have resided in the U.S. for 23 years."
Stephen Miller, the architect of the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" family separation policy that ripped minor infants and children not only from their parents but even separated them from their own siblings, was outraged.
PBS's Barrón-López had first shared the details of the Biden plan Monday on social media, noting in part, "President Biden will announce protections tomorrow (Tues) for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens and ease work visa access for some Dreamers, per 3 sources briefed by the White House."
Miller's response: "Shorter: Biden to give unconstitutional amnesty to illegal aliens during a border invasion."
Earlier on Monday Miller had written, "Big news: Biden to announce an unconstitutional executive amnesty for illegal aliens during a border invasion and in the aftermath of multiple gruesome raped [sic] and murders of Americans at the hands of Biden-freed illegals. This is an attack on democracy."
The separations proceeded, NBC News reported in 2020, despite the Trump administration having been warned by its own Dept. of Homeland Security General Counsel, John Mitnick, that: "a court could conclude that the separations are violative of the INA, Administrative Procedure Act, or the Fifth Amendment Due Process clause."
While not an attorney, Miller is the founder of a law firm that has filed lawsuits to protect white Americans, including "white straight men" and "white males" from alleged discrimination.
Miller also has been promising MAGA activists that if Trump returns to the White House, he “will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown.” Miller and his America First Legal group are part of Project 2025, which has prepared a plan for the movement to “take the reins of government” in a new Trump administration.
A conservative commentator splashed cold water on speculation that Donald Trump would back out of his first debate against president Joe Biden.
Democratic strategist James Carville wagers that Trump won't take the stage with Biden, but former Republican congressional staffer Amanda Carpenter told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" the presumptive GOP nominee wouldn't pass up a chance to spew lies and inflict pain on his Democratic rival.
"I'm not a betting woman, but I would happily take the other side of James Carville's wager for the exact point that Donald Trump will not turn down an opportunity for confrontation," Carpenter said. "When it comes to messaging to his supporters, a presidential debate, even though it's the earliest one in history, is a huge opportunity to speak on the mass level. I'm almost certain, I will take the bet had he will use it as an opportunity to reinforce the lies about Joe Biden that he has been actively telling. If you look at every big media opportunity, the CNN town hall earlier this year, he use it is to do a few things. One, reinforce the 2020 big election lie, and No. 2, promote the lie that the Department of Justice is being unfairly weaponized against him by 'puppeteer' Joe Biden. The Biden campaign better be preparing for Trump to directly confront him about that because, as you noted, no one understands how to play to the cameras like Donald Trump."
The June 27 debate will be moderated by CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, and there will be no studio audience, unlike past debates, and both of their microphones will be muted until it's their turn to speak – but Carpenter said the former president would likely find ways to disrupt the proceeding.
"Yes, his microphone maybe muted, but he is going to go hard at him and try to use the power of dynamics of the stage to knock Joe Biden off his game," Carpenter said. "I wouldn't be surprised if he also hits him in the gut with the Hunter Biden stuff. The GOP understands that that gets to the heart of Joe Biden. I just don't think there's any chance that Donald Trump says, 'You know what, I'm not going to use that opportunity that's laid before me' to directly reinforce those lies to his supporters."
"Stand back and stand by," added co-host Mika Brzezinski, recalling Trump's infamous statement at a 2020 debate to the right-wing extremist Proud Boys organization whose members later helped plan and carry out the Jan. 6 insurrection.
"Exactly," agreed host Joe Scarborough. "He's a disrupter, and he is going to figure out, cut off the microphones and do whatever you want to do, he's a disrupter. He doesn't really know the facts of the issues well at all, so he has to disrupt, he has to shock."
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough needled Donald Trump for waltzing out of a speech without taking any questions after promising to do so.
The presumptive Republican nominee told attendees at a convention center in Detroit that he would take their questions, which he said president Joe Biden was incapable of doing, and the "Morning Joe" host mocked Trump for walking out without taking a single query.
"I guess he didn't take the questions," said co-host Mika Brzezinski, laughing. "He just left."
Scarborough compared that casually broken promise to one of Trump's favorite rhetorical sleights, which is promising to deliver something in two weeks with no intention of following through, and he marveled at how so many fellow media members continued to fall for those tricks.
"It's interesting that some of these outlets will print something in the morning, they know it's a lie and they ran it anyway," Scarborough said. "Here Donald Trump says something, usually he lies and says, 'I'm putting out my health care plan in two weeks, going to be building the largest skyscraper in Moscow in two weeks, I'm going to be going to the moon fueled only by vitamin C and pixie dust in two weeks.' So two weeks come and people forget. He lies at the beginning of the speech: 'Unlike Joe Biden, I'll be answering your questions,' and then he just walks off. Again, for those of us who, like, have run campaigns and actually think that you have to do what, like, you say you're going to do with a speech or whatever or a call you have to answer that call. He just lies, walks off the stage."
The scene is straight from a discount bin spy novel.
A black SUV arrived at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to collect Sabrina Keliikoa, a QAnon adherent and supervisor at the facility’s FedEx air freight terminal.
Keliikoa was scared out of her wits.
She did not want to go.
But late on this Friday night in early December 2020, Keliikoa felt as if she had no choice: A retired Michigan State Police officer nicknamed “Yoda” had just warned that her life was in danger.
Keliikoa called in another employee to finish her shift. She entered the vehicle driven by a Marine Corps veteran who had provided security for American diplomats in Iraq. They arrived at a hotel where the driver checked her in. There, Keliikoa stayed for the next two days. A rotating set of “guards” occupied the adjacent room in shifts.
What was possibly happening here?
As Keliikoa would later testify in legal deposition, a video of whichRaw Story recently reviewed, a man entered her hotel room and asked her to write an affidavit about election ballots she’d seen — and considered suspicious — at the FedEx facility shortly after the 2020 election.
The man was part of a secretive team of Donald Trump supporters, operating without legal authority but under the leadership of former Trump national security adviser and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, that aimed to obtain information they believed could be used in lawsuits to change the outcome of the election in Trump’s favor.
More generally, they hoped to undermine public confidence that Joe Biden had won the 2020 election.
Keliikoa described the experience as being “detained” and complained she became a “pawn” of people determined to use her.
“So, I got a phone call that said somebody is coming in from another state with illegal ballots, and they were going to be looking for me, and they were going to try to kill me,” Keliikoa testified. “And I started crying because this turned into the biggest s---show when it shouldn’t have been.”
The escapade showcases the absurd lengths Flynn and his team went to concoct evidence that Trump had the 2020 presidential election “stolen” from him.
These and other baseless allegations of election fraud would instill fury in Trump’s supporters, who by the thousands attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, while attempting to prevent Congress from certifying the election.
These new revelations about Keliikoa’s ordeal also come at a time when Trump, who is expected to again be the Republican nominee for president, relentlessly claims that the multiple criminal prosecutions against him constitute an effort “to rig the presidential election of 2024.”
Trump’s script is familiar and predictable: He similarly made repeated claims well in advance of the 2020 election that the vote would be rigged. It’s an all-but-foregone conclusion that if Trump loses the 2024 election, he will exclaim, as he did then, that he actually won, and that Democrats, communists, the “deep state” and other perceived bogeymen stole it from him.
And if history is a guide, high-profile Trump surrogates can again be expected to again chase phantom evidence and spin wild tales in service of Trump’s I-can’t-lose approach to campaigning.
‘A plane full of ballots’
Until now, Keliikoa — the woman who held the information so feverishly sought by Trump’s supporters following the 2020 election — was known only as “the Seattle whistleblower.”
Keliikoa’s deposition, taken in March, fills in details about the “stop the steal” escapade and are being reported for the first time by Raw Story.
The seeds of Keliikoa's ordeal began germinating in November 2020. An array of high-profile Trump supporters had initiated a frenzied effort to collect affidavits that they hoped would bolster claims of election fraud, which pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell detailed in a series of lawsuits.
The goal: overturn the presidential election results in tightly contested states such as Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, and more generally, to undermine confidence in the election.
With his charisma and the respect he commanded as a retired lieutenant general, Michael Flynn, who had briefly served as Trump's national security advisor, quickly emerged as a de facto leader among the group of “stop the steal” operatives surrounding Powell.
The 2020 election was “the greatest fraud that our country has ever experienced in our history,” Flynn told far-right broadcaster Brannon Howse during an interview aired on Nov. 28, 2020. “I’m right in the middle of it right now, and I will tell you that, first of all, the president has clear paths to victory.”
Flynn had reason to feel emboldened. Three days earlier, then-President Trump granted Flynn a full pardon, wiping away his guilty plea to charges of lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Flynn began to speak at rallies and make media appearances on Trump’s behalf.
Flynn’s interview with Howse was his first interview of any sort since receiving Trump’s pardon. The key to exposing the election fraud, Flynn told the podcaster, was channeling the perceived power of hundreds of Trump supporters who believed they witnessed voting fraud or election irregularities.
“I mean hundreds and hundreds of Americans around the country, not just the swing states, but many, many other states that are coming forward with their stories and putting them down in affidavits,” he said at the time.
Four days later, Powell addressed a “Stop the Steal” rally in the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta. There, she angrily told the crowd that there had been “flagrant election fraud,” and said her team had “evidence” of all manner of ballot fraud, including “a plane full of ballots that came in.”
Burk was a former school board member and law school student in Arizona who suffers from a medical condition known as pulmonary arterial hypertension.
A man in Burk’s lung condition support group told her about a woman in Seattle who allegedly had information about illegal ballots. That woman was Keliikoa, and Burk’s lung condition buddy arranged to put the two women in touch.
But Burk first attempted to report Keliikoa's information to the FBI and then relayed it to Arizona state Rep. Kelly Townsend, a leading figure in the pro-Trump stop-the-steal effort. The supposed intel eventually filtered up to Sidney Powell’s legal team.
Burk and Keliikoa kept in touch by phone for the next month, but Keliikoa would later say she wouldn’t characterize their relationship as a friendship. Keliikoa didn’t want to give up her anonymity. Burk felt caught in a bind; she didn’t want to associate her own name with information she didn’t know firsthand, but she was feeling pressure from Townsend and others to persuade Keliikoa to come forward.
Sabrina Keliikoa as seen during a legal deposition on March 22, 2024. (Source: Deposition video via Staci Burk)
“I’ve been working on her coming forward for over a month,” Burk told Carissa Keshel, Powell’s assistant, in a Dec. 1, 2020, text message reviewed by Raw Story. “I almost facilitated a call with you, but she just got to work. She will likely let me do a conference call with anyone. But she’s still afraid to come forward.”
“What can we do to make her feel more comfortable?” Keshel asked Burk. “We can facilitate security.”
Attempting to find a way to obtain the information while preserving Keliikoa’s desired anonymity, Keshel suggested that Keliikoa forward her ballot intel to Burk, who, in turn, could include it in her own legal declaration. (Burk never fulfilled the request to provide such a statement.)
“Ok I just spoke with General Flynn,” Keshel told Burk. “He says if nothing else, if she can get us as much evidence as possible: pictures, facts. If she can send that to us (or you) and if she can even just write an email. Then you can do another declaration to cover for that. I hope that makes sense.”
What happened next demonstrates the effort by Flynn, Powell and a gaggle of pro-Trump activists to obtain affidavits supporting claims of election fraud was carefully orchestrated. It stands in stark contrast to the picture painted by Flynn — one of ordinary citizens organically and voluntarily coming forward to tell their stories out of a sense of patriotic duty.
Like Keliikoa, Burk found herself in the middle of conspiratorial talk surrounding supposed illegal ballots transported on planes and various security concerns.
Also — not insignificantly — if Powell's team was going to get access to Keliikoa, they would have to go through Burk, who was the only one who knew Keliikoa’s name or how to get in touch with her.
Flynn’s security team finds the ‘Seattle whistleblower’
On the morning of Dec. 4, 2020, Keshel texted Burk to tell her that she thought they had Burk’s “security issue all ironed out.”
Keshel then texted a photo of a man she identified as “Yoda” and a link to the website for 1st Amendment Praetorian, a volunteer security group linked to Flynn.
“Yoda” was Geoffrey Flohr, the retired Michigan State Police officer.
“Gen Flynn and his brother arranged the security for you, so I trust them,” Keshel told Burk in a text message.
“Yoda” arrived at Burk’s home in Florence, Ariz., later that day.
As previously reported by Raw Story, Burk has said that “Yoda” woke her up in the middle of the night. He told her that he had reliable information that the “Seattle whistleblower” was about to be kidnapped and taken to South Korea. “Yoda” even claimed that Burk’s friend in Seattle could potentially be killed if they didn’t send a security team to protect her, Burk recalled.
Burk called Keliikoa and put her on speaker phone so “Yoda” could speak to her.
Keliikoa would later testify that she was terrified by “Yoda” telling her about threats to her safety because bad actors were supposedly attempting to prevent her from exposing massive election fraud.
Indeed, she was so terrified that she called in another employee to cover for her and complete her work for the shift.
“And then what ended up happening is continuous phone calls back and forth,” Keliikoa testified. “‘Okay, well, somebody’s gonna send somebody to pick you up and take you to a safe place.’ But my name should have never been out there, and that makes me mad.”
At Burk’s insistence, late on that Friday night in early December 2020, “Yoda” provided Burk with a resume and photo of the driver who would pick up Keliikoa at the FedEx facility at the Seattle airport.
At 11:50 p.m., Burk texted the resume to Keliikoa.
Roland Hurrington — described on his resume as a Seattle-area Marine Corps veteran “responsible for the protection of classified material, equipment and U.S. mission personnel” — arrived at the FedEx facility in the black SUV to transport Keliikoa.
Keliikoa testified that Hurrington passed through a security checkpoint at the facility. How he was able to do that remains unclear, but Keliikoa speculated that the security personnel may have let him through based on the assumption that he was a chauffeur.
The pickup took place late at night — roughly 30 minutes after “Yoda” first spoke to her, according to Burk’s account.
“And then I get detained, taken,” Keliikoa recalled in her deposition. “And I don’t know who this person is. I don’t know where I was going. I can’t believe I actually agreed to go with this person, because they could have killed me and threw me on the side of the road, and nobody would have known.”
As it turned out, there never was a plot to kill Keliikoa.
In fact, while the pro-Trump stop-the-stealers involved didn’t know or admit it at the time, their entire ballot fraud enterprise was little more than a house of cards perched on pillars of sand.
And the ground beneath them was about to start quaking.
‘He fabricated everything’
Jim Penrose, a cyber-security expert who had previously worked at the National Security Agency under President Barack Obama, would later acknowledge to Burk that he was the man who showed up at Keliikoa’s hotel room and urged her to write an affidavit. After “Yoda” tracked Keliikoa down, Penrose went to her hotel room to meet her.
Penrose has been identified by the New York Times as being one of three men who joined Flynn and Powell at the South Carolina estate of defamation attorney Lin Wood to “gather and organize election information.” One of the others was Seth Keshel, a former Army military intelligence captain who was married to Carissa Keshel.
Jim Penrose as described on the website of the Institute for World Politics in Washington, D.C. (Institute for World Politics.)
“We had a security team dispatched in Seattle,” Penrose told Burk in a phone call that she recorded on Christmas Day of 2020.
“My worst fear was that the people were moving, you know, like a team of people that might want to, you know, even kidnap your friend in Seattle,” he said. “I didn’t want to let that happen, right, because I thought it was a situation that was dangerous. And we didn’t have enough info at the time to make a better decision.”
The reason why it was necessary for Flohr to wake up Burk involved grave concerns about an Arizona-based security company called Mayhem Solutions Group.
Why would Flohr care so much about this security firm?
Penrose had told Flohr a wild story about two Mayhem Solutions Group employees he believed were planning to fly an airplane to Phoenix to Seattle and potentially “kidnap” Keliikoa and take her to South Korea because of information she might have about election fraud.
The idea that Mayhem Solutions Group would be involved in a plot to harm Sabrina Keliikoa for the purpose of preventing her from exposing anti-Trump election fraud was not only bizarre. It was based on an utter fabrication.
Owner Shawn Wilson and his employee, Kenneth Scott Koch — both far-right operatives — were prone to conspiracy theories. Koch was a member of the far-right group the Oath Keepers and an anti-COVID lockdown crusader. Koch had presented himself to Burk as a shadowy agent for a rogue government operation involved in illegal ballot trafficking.
More than two weeks before the Flynn security team was dispatched to Seattle, Koch had come to Burk’s house in Arizona to advise her on home security. During a discussion about a similar theory concerning illegal ballots being unloaded from a plane at Phoenix Sky Harbor, Koch told Burk that a group of men shown in a photo standing next to the plane were “my guys.”
Koch, who had organized an anti-lockdown group in Arizona in response to COVID-19 measures, went on to suggest to Burk that pro-Trump amateur sleuths attempting to uncover election fraud might learn about more than they bargained.
“A lot of these people want to be the center,” he said. “They wanna have the information. The problem is the information they don’t want.” For reasons that remain unclear, Penrose would hire an investigative team that included two former FBI agents to interview Koch about his claims, but not until after the madcap mission in Seattle to obtain the affidavit from Keliikoa.
“We interviewed Koch at length, and he said he fabricated everything,” Penrose told Burk during the Christmas Day phone call.
A one-time ‘hostile actor’ in Flynn’s camp
Patently ridiculous is the notion that a lie told by an anti-COVID lockdown advocate in Arizona, about illegal ballots on a plane, would trigger a weeks-long wild-goose that reached the highest levels of then-President Donald Trump’s inner sanctum, up to and including his former national security adviser.
In the end, the lead that sent Flynn’s associates to the Seattle airport under the pretext of a manufactured election crisis in December 2020 turned out to be little more than a photo of ballots and unexplained beeping from a package scanner that raised the suspicions of Keliikoa, a woman whose imagination was set alight by QAnon conspiracy theories.
One would not be faulted for thinking that nothing about this fake ballot-hunting story seems real.
Except for the fact that it is real.
It’s unclear whether Koch and his boss, Shawn Wilson, knew Flynn prior to the 2020 election. Regardless, Koch’s admitted deception hasn’t prevented Wilson from associating with the Flynn camp since that time.
The America Project, a nonprofit co-founded by Flynn, published a video in late 2023 that presented Wilson as someone who “knows more about what is going on at the border than probably anybody in America.” (Not mentioned in the interview was the fact that Wilson’s company had subcontracted with the state of Texas to operate buses transporting migrants to Democratic-run cities.)
As Election Day 2024 draws nearer, Wilson has only become more public and overt about his support for Trump.
The messaging in Wilson’s interview for Flynn’s nonprofit was a classic appeal to authoritarianism by invoking fear — part of Trump’s playbook since he launched his first presidential campaign in 2015. Wilson claimed that a military assault similar to the one launched against Israel by Hamas is imminent at the U.S southern border.
The remedy, Wilson suggested, is to ensure that Trump wins the 2024 election, adding, “I’ll be leading the charge with him right behind him.”
‘There was no goldmine’
Keliikoa confirmed her QAnon association, which inspired her ballot skepticism, during her deposition earlier this year.
She allowed that she sent Burk a link to a three-hour documentary video series Fall of the Cabal, which is described by the Anti-Defamation League as “a popular recruitment tool for QAnon followers.”
Keliikoa testified that following the November 2020 presidential election, she became suspicious because “we were moving ballots after places were called.” (That wouldn’t have been unusual, considering that the U.S. Postal Service was under a federal court order to locate and deliver mail-in ballots that hadn’t been received by Election Day.) One package that caused a scanner to triple beep — meaning “that it’s not recognized” — also concerned her.
“I believe that something looked wrong,” Keliikoa testified when asked under oath by Burk whether still believes that she witnessed election fraud at the FedEx facility in November 2020.
But Keliikoa admitted that she had nothing of value to share with the ad-hoc security team that sequestered her in a hotel in December 2020.
“They wanted to know if I knew about a plane coming in with these illegal ballots,” Keliikoa recalled. “I told them, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ That didn’t come from me. I don’t know what you’re saying.’ They were asking me if I knew about stuff that was going on outside of my workplace. I don’t. I was working. I don’t go out to other places.”
This didn’t stop Powell, who included a “Jane Doe” witness — Keliikoa presumably — on a witness list filed as part of an Arizona ballot lawsuit in support of Trump’s stop-the-steal effort. “Jane Doe,” Powell said at the time, would “testify about illegal ballots being shipped around the United States including to Arizona on or about before Nov. 3, 2020.”
No one was more disappointed by Keliikoa’s statement than Penrose.
“I thought when we exfil-ed her and we got her to write her affidavit, I thought we were going to have a goldmine of information,” he later told Burk, using the spy-craft term “exfiltrate” that means to furtively remove someone from a hostile area.
“There was no goldmine,” Penrose continued. “She had a picture of two ballot bags, and I asked her: ‘Would you know if ballots came across the tarmac from that Korea Air flight?’ And the answer was, ‘I just know what comes in this bay door from the USPS and what goes out these bay doors to get loaded on FedEx planes.’ So, the answer was there was no smoking gun per se with respect to that.”
The band breaks up
These days, few of the people involved want to discuss the Seattle ballot brouhaha, now revealed as a tangle of conspiracy theories, creative fantasies and outright lies — all in service to Trump’s goal of retaining presidential power that he was about to lose.
Reached by Raw Story earlier this month, Penrose’s lawyer John S. Irving said, “We don’t have anything to add.”
Keliikoa declined to comment to Raw Story for this story.
In an email to Raw Story last week, FedEx Media Relations said, “We do not have any comment at this time.”
Hurrington, the Marine Corps veteran who drove Keliikoa in the SUV, could not be reached for comment. Flohr also could not be reached for comment.
Some of the key players involved have also split up.
Keliikoa said in her deposition that one of the men who met her at the hotel told her it would “be in my best interest not to keep in contact” with Burk because she was a “troublemaker.”
Burk told Raw Story this month that Keliikoa had previously told her that it was Penrose who called her a “troublemaker,” but during her deposition, she claimed that she didn’t remember the names of anyone at the hotel.
“That was clearly projection since he was overseeing and directing a group of heavily armed former law enforcement holding my family and me hostage using fear and deception, who then spent months continuing to use that group to manipulate and malign my character to cover for their bad behavior,” Burk told Raw Story.
Flynn and Powell are both defendants in Burk’s lawsuit, along with former Arizona state Rep. Kelly Townsend. Burk accuses the defendants of civil rights violations, false imprisonment, assault, infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy.
In a filing seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, Flynn’s lawyers wrote that Burk’s claims are “baseless” and “frivolous,” while denying that their client sent the security team to her house or that he intended that they hold her “hostage.”
But Flynn’s efforts to distance himself from Burk are belied by the fact that Flohr — aka “Yoda,” the ex-law enforcement volunteer dispatched to her home in Arizona — flanked Flynn as part of his security detail when he spoke at a pro-Trump rally in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., less than a week after he was at Burk’s house in December 2020.
Flynn is currently promoting a documentary movie that portrays him as a victim of political persecution, and Trump has hinted that he may bring his former national security adviser back to public service — and the taxpayer-funded payroll — should he win election to a second term.
Flynn did not respond to repeated requests for comment made by Raw Story through his lawyers.
Last year, Powell pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties in Georgia.
Burk is suing Koch for fraudulent misrepresentation, invasion of privacy and infliction of emotional distress in the Arizona state courts, separate from her federal claim against Flynn, Powell and Townsend. Representing herself, Burk deposed Keliikoa for her lawsuit against Koch. Last week, Burk filed a motion to consolidate her case against Koch with her federal lawsuit against Powell and Flynn.
Under cross-examination by Koch’s lawyer in March, Keliikoa downplayed her role in giving life to the “ballots on planes” theory.
“The only relevance I have is a lot of people got involved and it turned into, like I said before, a big s---show where a lot of people were involved that should have never even been there, that should have never been involved,” she said. “And I got thrown into the mix like everybody else. I was used as a pawn. That’s what makes me mad.”
Knowing what she knows now, Keliikoa said, she would have never agreed to write the affidavit.
“I thought people really wanted to help,” she said in her deposition. “And now I know otherwise.”
“Nobody really cares,” she added, “because everybody has their own objective.”
* * * * *
Key players
Staci Burk is a former school board member from Arizona who found herself in the middle of a conspiracy theory concerning illegal ballots and airplanes after the 2020 election.
Roland Hurrington is a Marine Corps veteran enlisted to pick up Sabrina Keliikoa at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport FedEx air freight terminal in December 2020.
Geoffrey Flohr, also known as “Yoda,” is a retired Michigan State Police officer who volunteered for the 1st Amendment Praetorian security group in late 2020 and early 2021. He used Staci Burk to track down Sabrina Keliikoa.
Michael Flynn is a retired lieutenant general who served as national security advisor for President Donald Trump before pleading guilty to lying to the FBI. Trump pardoned Flynn in November 2020, and Flynn emerged alongside Sidney Powell as a key player in the effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Sabrina Keliikoa is a former FedEx supervisor and QAnon adherent who claims to have been detained by a security team linked to Michael Flynn that obtained an affidavit about election ballots observed at her facility shortly around the time of the 2020 election.
Carissa Keshel was a volunteer who served as attorney Sidney Powell’s assistant in late 2020, as Flynn worked with Powell to overturn the 2020 election.
Kenneth Scott Koch is a security contractor formerly employed by Mayhem Solutions Group (now MSG Risk Management & Intelligence) who “fabricated” a story about his involvement in illegal ballot trafficking. Koch organized anti-lockdown protests in Arizona and was a member of the far-right group the Oath Keepers.
Jim Penrose is a cyber-security expert who worked for the National Security Agency under President Barack Obama. He traveled to Washington state to obtain an affidavit from Sabrina Keliikoa.
Sidney Powell is a former federal prosecutor who filed lawsuits in Arizona and other states seeking to overturn the 2020 election based on outlandish claims of voting fraud.
Kelly Townsend is a former Arizona state House member who told Staci Burk it was imperative that the “Seattle whistleblower” (now revealed to be Sabrina Keliikoa) come forward and report her suspicions about illegal ballot trafficking after the 2020 election.
Donald Trump is the former president of the United States who is again running for the presidency in 2024. Many of the actions described in this story were done in Trump’s name.
Shawn Wilson is the president of MSG Risk Management & Intelligence (formerly Mayhem Solutions Group). Jim Penrose told Staci Burk that he was initially concerned that Wilson, along with Kenneth Scott Koch, were “hostile actors” intent on harming Sabrina Keliikoa.
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Sabrina Keliikoa as seen during a legal deposition on March 22, 2024. (Source: Deposition 
Jim Penrose as described on the website of the Institute for World Politics in Washington, D.C. (Institute for World Politics.)
